Spying on activists: Who is the criminal now?

After the Denver police spy files were revealed in 2002, my friends, the spied
upon, said, "It isn't just happening in Denver. It is happening all over
the United States."

In Denver, the secret police spy files became public through attorney discovery
in a local court case. The spy files did not become public because of the
integrity of the Denver Police Intelligence Division. Those secret police spy
files included cases that went back 30 years. Of course all of the American
Indian activists names were there, the usual suspects working for peace and
justice. But there were surprises in the list of 3,200 individuals and 208
organizations.

Denver police spied on an 80-year-old grandmother because she had a
"Leonard Peltier" bumper sticker on her car.

Denver police also spied on American Indian attorneys at the Native American
Rights Fund and a senator who worked for Native American rights. South Dakota
Sen. James Abourezk, who once headed the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs,
was spied on. Abourezk obtained a copy of his spy file and said he still didn't
have a clue why he was targeted. Abourezk said he hadn't been in Denver in 15
years. The Abourezk spy file just said the Denver police were watching him.

Anyone helping Navajos at Big Mountain or Zapatistas in Chiapas in Denver was
under Denver police surveillance.

The Quakers, it turned out, were among the most spied on in the US, revealing
the insanity of US police probes of the peace-seeking.

In the end, after a lawsuit was filed against the Denver Police Department by
American Indians, the ACLU and others, the spied-upon could go and retrieve
their spy files in Denver. However, this required updating Denver police
records with current IDs and personal information, so many passed.

Now, years later, spy files are worming their way out of police file cabinets
everywhere, like maggots in wait, feeding on the dark and decaying fecal matter
of failed trust.

American Indians were a primary target of the Denver police. In retrospect, it
appears Denver activists were a sort of pilot project for extensive domestic
spying because of the large network of multi-agency task forces in Colorado and
secret US military operations in Colorado Springs.

Elsewhere in the United States, groups of peace activists opposed to the Iraq
war and organizations working against the death penalty were targets. Their
meetings were infiltrated by liars and deceivers. In Maryland, peaceful climate
change activists were listed as "suspected terrorists." Code Pink
women who never came to Maryland were tracked in spy files by Maryland State
Police.

Now, it is revealed that one million Americans are on the US watch list. One
million Americans are being spied on. How can any government provide manpower
to spy on one million people?

One of the ways that the US spies on 1 million citizens is to place secret spy
rooms at telephone companies, including Verizon and AT&T, as revealed in
the book, The Shadow Factory. The US subcontracted Israeli companies to data
mine the operations, so now Israeli companies have sensitive information on
most Americans. Still there was so much information from recording everyone's
phone calls and e-mails, it was often ineffective. Those plotting the 9/11
attack were within two miles of the NSA. Although the NSA was listening,
probably even eating at the same cafes, the US agents said they did not know
the 9/11 plotters were in the neighborhood.

The CIA has a new strategy: Advertising for CIA spies in American Indian
newspapers.

In reality, this means that those Native American newspapers are now funded by
the CIA. Advertisements for the CIA Clandestine Services have appeared now for
months on the websites of Indian Country Today and Native American Times, even
on the same webpages with articles about American Indians struggling against
this same oppression.

Mohawk Nation News states that spies for foreign nations forfeit their
birthright. The US and Canada are foreign governments.

"Espionage is a violation of the Kaianerehkowa, the Great Law, our
constitution. A spy breaking their own nation's laws can be imprisoned. Wampum
58 provides that, 'any persons who submit to laws of a foreign people are
alienated and forfeit their birthright and claims of the Rotino'shonni:onwe and
territory,'" Mohawk Nation News states.

During the Earth First! trial in Prescott, Arizona in 1991, a particularly
sleazy informant was on the witness stand, one of many who revealed a trail of
FBI misconduct. Of course, that revelation of FBI misconduct did not prevent
the majority of the five defendants from going to prison. The FBI even had to
drive the monkey wrenchers to their so-called crime because they didn't have a
ride.

The sleazy informant was a former boyfriend of one of the defendants. He was
placed back in her home as a babysitter to be an informant. He bugged his
former girlfriend's bedroom with a listening device. When the federal
prosecutor was asked why she placed this sleazy informant on the witness stand,
her response was, "Everyone knows that informants are always sleazy."

As a news reporter covering the Earth First! trial as a stringer for AP, this
was the first of many revelations in federal court for me, including the fact
that the federal prosecutors and the federal judges are on the same team. This
trial also opened a window into the corrupt world of US spying and how federal
agents coax people into what appears to be a crime.